Hi, I am not a turkey person so I would not be able to help you with your question (sorry), however I am a chicken person and am getting ready to build a second smaller coop for some breeding stock and would like to see a picture of your current chicken coop if you would not mind posting it. I can not make up my mind how I want to do it and have not been able to find anything that I like. I only have until May to finish the coop and want to get started on it very soon since the garden will start taking up alot of time getting it planted and so forth.

Nelda

We bought some turkeys from someone who was moving out of state. 1/2 were Naragansett and 1/2 were Royal Palm. The Naragansett are similar to the wild Turkey and the Royal Palm is black and white. Both turkey breeds breed well naturally, and we have had two sets of incubated eggs result in several poults. If you get the broad breasted White or Bronze, they do not breed well on their own. We house our Turkeys with our chickens, which is not normally suggested. The Turkeys sometimes bully the chickens, but our rooster was raised with the Turkeys and stands up to them. If you don't mind a lot of gobbling, keep two toms. They will alert when there is someone in the yard, or anytime they see our daughter come home from school. Whenever the Turkeys go off I look outside to see what's happening. Oh, and both breeds are delicious. They dress out to about 12-15 pounds. Our chickens are mostly for eggs but our Turkeys are for eggs and eating. Turkey eggs are large and very good for over easy. To scramble them, they are more viscous, so a blender is easier. The taste is the same as a chicken egg. I have not regretted getting our Turkeys.

We have had better luck with the bronze turkeys here--they seem hardier than the whites. I always prefer turkeys to meat chickens since they are easier cleaning for me. We usually buy them from the hatchery and butcher in early November when the weather is cool and the carcasses cool quickly. Some people keep them over winter, but since the winters here are so long, it is expensive to breed them.

Dark birds are not as pretty after they have been cleaned typically, especially if there skin is dark, in which case its easy to miss a feather or two. If you were blind you would not notice the difference in cleaning them.

I am in love with the taste of turkey!! omg